The Long History of the Future: Why Tomorrow’s Technology Still Isn’t Here

by Nicole Kobie

We love to imagine the future. But why is dramatic future technology always just around the corner, and never a reality?

For decades we've delighted in dreaming about a sci-fi utopia, from flying cars and bionic humans to hoverboards; with driverless cars first proposed at the 1939 World's Fair. And why not? Building a better world, be it a free-flying commute or an automated urban lifestyle is a worthy dream. Given the pace of technological change, nothing seems impossible anymore. But why are these innovations always out of reach? Delving into the remarkable history of technology, The Long History of the Future also looks at what lies ahead, showing how the origins of our technology may provide insight into how it realistically evolves. You may never be able to buy a fully driverless car, but automated braking and steering could slash collision rates. Smart cities won't perfect city life, but they could help bins be emptied on time. Hyperloops may never arrive, but superfast trains could fill the gap. Looking to the future, Nicole Kobie demonstrates how despite our belief that current technology is the best it could ever be, the future always proves us wrong, and there is much to look forward to.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, History, Audiobook, Science

368 pages, Hardcover

First published July 4, 2024

Reviews

[David Hambling · Rating 3 out of 5]

disappointing

Anecdote heavy, this doesn’t really get to grips with the technology challenges and the timelines involved. Would be useful to have examples of technology which was eventually delivered after many efforts eg heavier than air flight. Also, brushes aside the key impact of capitalism and the alternative approaches to tech.

[Brian Clegg · Rating 4 out of 5]

We've all got a favourite bit of technology that has been 'coming soon' for decades. Nicole Kobie takes us through the historical journey to the present for a range of such technologies from flying cars to robots (more detail in a moment). In each case these technologies seemed achievable many decades earlier, but the reality has been that making the dream real proved much harder than most envisaged (especially the inventors and investors).

Kobie takes us through driverless cars, AI, robots, augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR), cyborgs and brain interfaces, flying cars, Hyperloops and smart cities. Many of these topics are much discussed, but it's really helpful seeing them all pulled together to get an overview of the way that we repeatedly get drawn into failed investments of time and money into a science fictional future without thinking enough about the practicalities of making it happen.

My least favourite section was smart cities - I think most people (once Hyperloop is explained) would recognise what was being attempted in most topics, but wouldn't have a clue what a smart city is - in fact, even after reading the chapter I'm not much the wiser, and Kobie concludes that they don't really exist. This makes it hard to get interested in the subject. Probably my favourite was the chapter on AR/VR - because it feels like the technology that is closest to being achievable while at the same time no one is really quite certain why we want it. This book makes a wonderful contrast with The Infinite Retina which, in 2020 was predicting we would all be wearing AR glasses by now instead of using smartphones. That book also seemed to think autonomous vehicles were about to take over, making the remarkable statement 'Electric vehicles are cheaper. Autonomous vehicles are too...', demonstrating how much the authors were in the kind of bubble that explains many of the continued investments in unlikely tech that Kobie describes.

For me there was one big omission here - nuclear fusion power stations - but there has been plenty written about those. There are broadly two approaches Kobie could have taken, each with their merits and demerits. She could have picked out key developments for each technology, giving a chance for more storytelling about them (and the stories are sometimes brilliant), or she could have mentioned a whole host of attempts, giving a more comprehensive history but less to enjoy. If I'm honest, for popular science like this I would prefer the first approach, but Kobe has gone for the second - rather than give us that depth, she does give footnotes to longer articles, but that doesn't provide the same narrative drive. Sometimes, there were just too many steps along the way without enough detail to make it interesting.

I will also throw in one specific moan on historical inaccuracy - Kobie perpetuates the myth of Ada Lovelace (strictly Ada King, Countess of Lovelace) as the 'inventor of computer programming'. It's arguable whether or not what was published were programs rather than algorithms, but what's certainly true is that Babbage wrote several before Lovelace made her contribution - so if you want to refer to this as the point in time we got the first programmer, it was Babbage, not Lovelace.

Although I personally would have preferred fewer bits of tech in each section with more storytelling, I ought to stress that Kobie's approach is great in giving us a picture of just how many attempts have been made along the way, and the difficult path there has been to attempt these innovative but not necessarily realistic technological developments. It's an excellent addition to the tech-lover's (or the tech-sceptic's) bookshelf.

[Shireen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars
Humans have always had a real drive to imagine what life would be like for people in the future - the kinds of technologies we'd have at our fingertips, perhaps flying cars, robot butlers, hyperloop highspeed transport, and so forth. So why don't we actually have any of that tech available to us, the clamoring public, yet? Technology has improved leaps and bounds over the intervening decades, but as is clearly outlined in this book, tech may look like it moves quickly but there are many tiny baby steps that have to be taken in the meantime and there are a lot more setbacks than we might not otherwise have been aware. Many of the technologies that were imagined years ago are here in some basic form or another but the majority are not technically feasible yet as consumer products. This book aims to provide the answers to the question "why not?"

I do appreciate that "The Long History of the Future" as a clever title is two-fold: firstly, that the history of technology itself is long and winding and ever-continuing; secondly, the book goes into quite a bit of lengthy detail within each of the chapters dedicated to a particular tech or gadgets that we thought we'd possess by now. I also really enjoyed all the vignettes and footnotes that the author includes in each of the various sections, my favourites of which are the chapters on Cyborgs & Brain-Computer Interfaces, and Smart Cities. For example, I had no idea about the history of streetlights in Toronto until I read this and now I have a cool bit of trivia to whip out at parties! In all honesty, as someone with a very basic science background, I found this a refreshingly comprehensible history of technology, jampacked with all kinds of tech info and history but laid out in a way that's quite easy to follow for us scientific non-specialists.

Thanks to NetGalley, author Nicole Kobie, and Bloomsbury Sigma (USA) for providing me with a free digital advance readers copy of this book to read and review. All opinions are my own and are provided voluntarily.

[Leonardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like to thank NetGalley and the author for giving me the opportunity to preview this book.
Nicole Cobie's "The Long History of the Future" is a thought-provoking exploration that masterfully bridges the realms of history and futurology. Cobie’s erudition shines through as she navigates through time, delving into the myriad ways humanity has envisaged and strived toward the future. The book earns a solid 4 out of 5 for its remarkable ability to blend scholarly insight with engaging narrative.

From the very first chapter, Cobie captivates readers with her lucid writing style and the depth of her research. She traces historical predictions and technological forecasts, offering a panoramic view of how past societies envisioned their futures. Her analysis is both broad and detailed, capturing the essence of human innovation, ambition, and often, the surprising accuracy or fallibility of these predictions.

One of the book’s standout qualities is its ability to connect historical foresight with contemporary technological and social trends. Cobie adeptly discusses the influence of historical contexts on modern advancements, making the reader ponder not only about what the future holds, but how past dreams have shaped our present reality.

While the book is undeniably rich in information, its density may occasionally challenge readers who are new to the subject. Nevertheless, Cobie's approachable tone and the fascinating anecdotes she weaves throughout provide ample motivation to continue.

In conclusion, "The Long History of the Future" is an enlightening and stimulating read. It caters to both history buffs and futurists, offering a unique perspective on how our past aspirations influence our present and future. This book is a testament to Nicole Cobie’s prowess as a historian and a visionary thinker, making it a valuable addition to anyone's reading list.

[Francis Tapon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most books that proclaim to write about the future spend 90% of the time discussing the past.
It's annoying.
This book does the same, but I forgive the author, Nicole Kobie, because her title reveals that she plans to focus on history, not the future.

She tackles pipedreams like flying cars, hyperloops, driverless cars, robots, AR, BCIs, etc...
Sadly, she skips nuclear fusion.

In each chapter, she spends 90% of the time discussing the long history of attempts to achieve some sci-fi goal (and failing).
She often starts the history lesson from more than 200 years ago.
I often skimmed to the end because the history doesn't fascinate me, but if you're curious, she does an outstanding job at reviewing how we got to the present.

If you're just interested in the present and her future vision, skip to the last 10% of each chapter.

Sometimes, her declarations are useless: "AGI doesn't exist. It might never exist, or it might have been created before this book is published."

Thanks, Kobie, for your mind-melting insight.

Other times, she's more definitive: "Humanoid robots with some degree of general intelligence ... will exist one day."

She also thinks AR glasses will one day live up to the hype.
We'll "probably" want to see "a digital overlay in front of our eyes."

She can be pessimistic: "Don't expect a flying taxi to be touching down in front of your house ... ever."
Kobie is pleased because flying cars "would clog up the skies above cities and exacerbate transport inequities, with the rich flying fast over traffic while the rest sweat it out on buses."
A Luddite probably said the same thing when cars went faster than horses.

She concludes that future technological visions are not inevitable.
"Turning science into reality is sometimes impossible."

Kobie delivers what her title promises.

[Popup-ch · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's 2024, where's my flying car? — It's called a 'helicopter', and it turns out that they're dangerous and expensive.

Kobie looks at various 'new' technologies and shows how they have a long pedigree.

Ernst Dickmanns made some advanced self-driving cars, and built a van that successfully negotiated real traffic on the German Autobahn in the 1980's, using cameras and lots of computers, for what was at the time cutting-edge image recognition. But he was not the first. The history goes back to the 1920's and every decade since then has seen some improvements.

There are similar chapters about robots, AI, flying cars, cyborgs and smart cities, all of them showing Ms Kobies detailed research and flair for writing about it.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Nicole Kobie paints a portrait of technology that is not quite ready for prime time. With a combination of her own journey, lucid explanations, conversational tone, and some humour, Kobie gives the history of these developments and explains why they have not progressed as much as predicted. Kobie comes across as neither a Luddite nor an alarmist, but as someone genuinely interested in technology. This book is well worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury USA for the advance reader copy.

[Simms · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting tour through the longer-than-you-might-expect history behind some eternally "just around the corner" tech (e.g. AI, self-driving cars, flying cars, bionics/cyborgs, etc. - all it's missing is cold fusion). Just don't read it if you don't like having cold water thrown on your dreams of a high-tech future!

Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Sigma for the ARC.

[Zack Subin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author’s voice comes through more strongly in the second half, blending appreciation for tech with skepticism of technofuturism and Silicon Valley tycoons substituting tech for governance. It could have used tighter editing though; parts of the early chapters read as a laundry list of intermediate inventions and stats.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

It grew on me. It started somewhat boring but picked up in later chapters. Overall, an informative read about promises and over promises of technology. Awful cover graphic design is definitely costing this book at many potential readers. I take away one star for nonsensical and unnecessary references to self-perceived 'social justice'.

[Liza Konovalova · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book but possibly because I tend agree with the author about a lot of things.

Good: I liked the histories of the technologies selected. The book is well written and generally gets the point across.

Bad: I found the first part is a bit repetitive as the topics are intimately connected to each other.

[Bill Morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boring

[Brian Swain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting perspectives on a wide range of always-just-arund-the-corner technologies, e.g., flying cars, AI, robots, etc. Well worth the read.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Review published in Alberta Views July 2025 issue]

Flying cars. Robot butlers. Artificial intelligence. For much of the 20th century, these futuristic technologies weren’t just sci-fi fantasies—they were the inevitable next steps in the march of progress, presented in lifestyle magazines and world fairs as the results of a rising tide that had lifted the world from horse-drawn carriages to lunar landers in less than a century. So why is it that a full 25 years into the new millennium, none of them have materialized?

That’s the question posed by Nicole Kobie’s The Long History of the Future: Why Tomorrow’s Technology Still Isn’t Here, an insightful and often funny look at the false starts and dead ends lying between us and our glorious high-tech future. Born in Calgary and based in the UK, Kobie has made a career of cutting through hype cycles for publications such as PC Pro, Wired and New Scientist, and she puts that clear-eyed perspective to good use exploring the great undelivered technologies of our time.

Each chapter presents a new technology with a new set of challenges and a new cast of characters working to overcome them. As the title implies, these histories of new tech go back further than you might think. With working mockups of self-driving cars in the 1930s, sales of fully licensed flying cars dating back to the 1950s, and augmented-reality headsets in the 1960s, the future is surprisingly well represented in the past.

But clearly those successes weren’t enough to launch those innovations into our day-to-day lives. As Kobie recounts, the reasons are understandably varied. Some technologies were successful in controlled conditions but too complex for wider deployment. Others never found a way to bridge the gap from neat idea to useful product. And still others were never particularly good ideas in the first place. Watching Kobie unleash her well-honed sense of skepticism on needlessly complex hyperloops and surveillance-heavy smart cities is especially gratifying. “We don’t need smart cities,” she says pointedly of the latter. “We need good ones. We need livable ones. We need sustainable ones. And we need them quickly.”

Critical as it can be of hypesters and hucksters, The Long History of the Future is rarely cynical, and Kobie has a clear fondness for most of the visionaries (and occasional kooks) whose ambitions and missteps helped build the modern world. And considering it is, in a sense, a history of failure, the book leaves you with a surprisingly optimistic view of technological progress. Whether we channel our efforts into moonshots that may never materialize or focus on less glamorous, incremental improvements that make life better for everyone, the direction the future takes is up to us.